Tuesday our team visited the school near Puerto Caimito. As we arrived we noticed very few students walking around the school. Then the bell rang and students filled the breezeway! In this particular school students go to class from 7a to 12p.

Lysa, the principal, and Pastor Millie greeted us and offered a prayer to start the day. After figuring out the where registration, triage, the docs, and pharmacy were going to be, patients started to come in steadily. It was such a different environment than yesterday’s jungle adventure. The school was kind enough to lend us a few classrooms that had air conditioning!

The people of Puerto Caimito were so kind. The team chatted with several of the English teachers who taught 1st grade. One of the teachers even jumped in and started helping translate for one of our doctors. Another teacher was gracious enough to show us his classrooms. He explained that he graduated from the University last year and this was his first teaching job. Jonathan is teaching English as a second language. And his students love him and he is a great teacher! It was apparent with the rapport that he had with his students and the way they engaged in conversations with him.

After our work, Tony, our amazing bus driver, drove us down to the Port that empties into the Pacific Ocean. Several of the team got out of the bus to take pictures of fishing boats that were stranded because of the tide. The fish market to our left smelled, well, like fish!

That night we enjoyed dinner from the district office prepared by Amatina, the district President’s wife. It was amazing. Eliezel shared some of his vision and dreams for the work & witness teams that come to Panama in the future. He challenged us to treat every person as if they were Jesus himself. “Every person is special," he said.

We concluded the night with one of our team sharing a brief testimony about where she is seeing God at work in Panama.